The Scars We Hide
by QuestionableIntentions
Summary: Everyone has scars. Sometimes we just don't see them. Each TLC character has a mental disorder. Be very very careful if content like this disturbs you. All human, alternate universe. This is rated M for a reason. It has some provocative topics (rape, death, etc.), so please be careful and read at your own risk. [Kaider, Wolflet, Cresswell, Jacinter, Kiko]
1. Thursday Night-Levana's House-Cinder

_Levana had a knife. Cinder was spread out on the floor, prone after being beaten with her aunt's fists and words._

 _Levana had a knife. She giggled wickedly as the point of the knife neared Cinder's back._

 _Levana had a knife. Cinder felt the knife going into her back and she heard it slice through her thin shirt and her skin._

 _Levana had a knife. She slowly carved something into Cinder's back._

 _Levana had a knife. She walked away, dropped the knife in the sink, and left her niece to bleed out on the floor while she went out to the bar with her evil friends Aimery, Jael, and Sybil._

 _Cinder forced herself to her hands and knees, ignoring the dizziness she felt every time after Levana beat her. She crawled to the bathroom and got out the first aid kit. She pulled out the stuff that made her scab over quickly and a rag. She folded the rag with shaking hands and stuffed it in her mouth. She bit down on the rag and screamed around it as she worked her ruined shirt off. She screamed again as she put the scab powder all over her back and reached behind herself to press it into the cuts. Then, she passed out on the cold, tiled floor._

It was morning. Cinder lifted her head off the dirty white floor of the bathroom. Levana had only cut her once before, and that was a small _x_ on the top of her right shoulder. This was much, much worse. She winced, hating the thought that she had to move. Today was a Friday. She had to go to school. She slowly got to her feet. She looked in the mirror at her face. There was a giant bruise on her left cheekbone. Levana had been less careful than usual to keep Cinder's face uninjured. Cinder dug through her toiletries bag and got out all her makeup. She also got out a large skin-colored bandage and opened her almost-empty thing of concealer. She put the band-aid over her bruise and caked concealer on to hide it. She'd have to get more one the way home. Idly, Cinder wondered whether she had enough money to buy lunch and more concealer. She'd just have to go hungry. She stepped into the shower and turned it on. The water in Levana's house was always too hot or too cold, and that day, it was scalding. She gritted her teeth and turned around to let the water hit her back as well, which hurt just as much as she'd expected. When Cinder stepped out of the shower, she felt better, even though her skin had reddened from the heat. She slowly got dressed in her usual outfit, being careful not to rip open the artificial scabs from the day before. The process was a bit more difficult without being able to bend over very much. Cinder's tank top was on the floor so she had to bend her knees and sort of awkwardly squat down until she could reach it. She also had a hard time putting on pants. As she walked out the door, she left her backpack, knowing that it would reopen her wounds. She grabbed her jacket and walked to the bus stop. As soon as she was on the bus, she ran for the seat in the back. There was already someone there, but she just smiled and sat down next to him. He smiled back at her and tried to hug her.

"Kai…"

She pushed his arms away. His face turned worried.

"What did she do to you last night?"

"I actually haven't seen it yet. It hurt too much to twist around enough to get a glimpse."

She turned around so her back was to him and shrugged off her jacket, inviting him to look. He lifted the hem of her shirt to the middle of her back. He gasped. She put her jacket back on.

"How bad is it?"

"She wrote…she cut the word _worthless_ into your back."

"Lovely…I'll have that for the rest of my life. As if I need my self-esteem to get any lower. Hey…can you do my ponytail? I can't really lift my arms 'cause I'm afraid of bleeding all over your jacket."

Yes, the jacket was Kai's. When Cinder first started dating him, she had stolen it from him over and over again, if only to get a breath of the scent of him before she had to hand it back. He finally gave up and let her have it. She stuck her nose in the collar and breathed in. It smelled like leather, detergent, and Kai.

"Sure. Do you have a hair tie?"

"Here."

Kai gathered her mousy brown hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck and tied it, then kissed the place where her shoulder and neck met. The bus screeched to a stop, and they were at school.

 **A/N-Hey guys. As you can see this fic will be less fluffy and more serious than my usual. I don't really know what I'm doing here since I've never been in most of these situations, for which I am incredibly grateful. If I get anything wrong, please don't hesitate to tell me. (Just please be polite about it.) I'm going to have the next chapter out as soon as possible and I might neglect Novel Academy a bit while this is going. I'm sort of losing initiative on that one. But I will finish it, because I know the feeling of reading a fic, liking it, and then realizing the author has given up on it. It sucks. So, that will either be finished really quickly before _Scars_ picks up speed, or I will continue to write chapters really slowly while I'm working on _Scars_. Um, that's all, I guess. As always, my PM is open.  
**

 **Love,  
Baz**


	2. Early Friday Morning-Scarlet's House

**A/N-I would like to take this opportunity to reply to all of the reviews I've gotten so far:**

 **PennTheWriter: Why thank you! And you're not a sucky beta, that's silly. You're great!**

 **Guest: Thank you! I'm glad to here that you're excited about this chapter! I am too!**

 **Guest: Well, this chapter is longer. And thank you, it's meant to be dark. Also, I'd like it if you didn't refer to my other work as "shit". It's not the best feeling in the world, to have something that's become a part of you called shit. If you like darker fics, I recommend checking out SilenceIsGolden15. Her stories are very serious, and she's a great writer.**

 **Now, without further ado...your chapter.**

Scarlet woke up and stretched. Another day to live through. Great.

She got up out of bed, stopped the beeping coming from the alarm on her waterproof watch, and took a shower. (It wasn't really a shower. She kinda just stood there and let the water hit her.) She sighed. _Looks like it's gonna be another bad day_ , she thought.

She got dressed robotically: jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt, don't button it 'cause it's not _that_ cold, boots, brush hair, put hair into a bun, army knife and phone in her back pocket, handgun in the concealed holster at her hip, pepper spray in her other back pocket.

She went through her morning routine, waiting for the sun to come up. She went out and collected eggs from her chickens, even though she asked herself what the point was. She made breakfast for three people, then put two thirds of it in the fridge. Wolf would be by later and he couldn't cook, so if she didn't make him breakfast, he'd probably burn the house down.

She ate what was left of the scrambled eggs and headed outside to start her morning chores. She finished them more quickly than usual, since all she wanted to do was go back inside and lie down.

She laid down on her couch, then fell back asleep.

Wolf woke her up by shaking her shoulder.

"C'mon Scar, you gotta get up."

Scarlet mumbled, "I don't wanna."

"Callie Benoit-Tanner, you get up right now, or I'll be forced to tickle you."

"Okay, okay. I'm up, Z."

Her boyfriend of two years looked into her half-asleep eyes.

"On a scale of one to I wish I could kill myself but Z won't let me, how bad was today?"

He asked her the same question every day, whether it was over the phone, video chat, or in person.

"Somewhere between Functioning and Completely Numb."

Today, compared to her other bad days, hadn't been that bad. Her depression hadn't really been bothering her that much lately, and she had been waiting for another bad day to happen. This wasn't too bad. She suspected that tomorrow would be worse.

"There's breakfast for you, Z. I left it on the counter."

"Thanks."

Scarlet checked her watch. It was nine a.m.

"Shit! I need to get ready for my class at the high school!"

Wolf walked over, his mouth full of food.

"What class?"

"They asked me to teach a class about farming over at Luna High School. Don't know why they picked me, but apparently I'm the most qualified for the job. Can you take those eggs and the peppers I picked to the market for me today?"

"Sure."

"Thanks."

She ran upstairs and put some makeup on, hiding her chapped lips and the bags under her eyes, then ran back downstairs and grabbed her bag and the keys to her car. She waved to Wolf, who was carrying two dozen eggs to put in his own car, and ran out the door.

She got in her car and breathed in, trying to prepare herself for teaching a class full of kids.

"Hey, Darling."

Her grandmother had named the car when she was still alive. Scarlet's last memory of her grandma not in a hospital bed was in this car. They had gotten in, her grandma had said, "Hey Darling," and she had driven to the hospital and checked herself in. She knew something was wrong. It turned out that she had cancer and she had died two months later. Scarlet had been eight. Scarlet was then sent to live with foster families. Thirty-four of them. None of the families who claimed to be able to handle unruly kids could take her for long. She had finally turned eighteen and gotten away, back to her grandmother's farm, which had been left to her. She met Wolf a few weeks later.

Scarlet started the car and turned on the CD player in the dash. She stuck a CD in, turned up the volume, and started singing along to Heart of Fire.

Four songs later, she was at Luna High. She parked where she thought the teachers would park and headed inside, trying to remember which classroom she was supposed to be in. Someone bumped into her, a man with bright orange hair and a sharp face.

He extended his hand. "Aimery Park. Sorry about that."

She shook his hand, and tried to pull away, but he didn't let go. "No problem, Mr. Park. Um, I'm supposed to teach a science class here, but I'm not sure where to-"

He cut her off. "Sorry, but I have my own class to teach. Can't help you."

Scarlet yanked her hand away (finally) and put it on her hip. "Well, ex _cuse_ me, Mr. Park. I can see I'm wasting your valuable time. If you'll excuse me, I have a science classroom to find. On my own."

When he made no move to get out of her way, she stepped around him and continued peeking into classrooms to try and guess which one was the science one. When she looked inside one room and saw a teacher wearing a lab coat and holding a dead rat up by the tail, she guessed that was the science room. She then headed up to the teachers' lounge to wait until third period, which was when she had to teach. She sat down in one of the chairs and put her earbuds in. She scrolled through her playlists until she found Linkin Park and then leaned back and closed her eyes, letting the music absorb her.

Scarlet took a couple of deep breaths. It was time. She walked back down to the science classroom a few minutes early so she could meet the science teacher.

She stuck out her hand and he shook it, saying, "Hi. My name is Ryu Hvit-ulv. But since that's a bit hard to pronounce, you can just call me Ryu."

"I'm Callie Benoit-Tanner."

He had an accent that Scarlet couldn't place, but it was captivating. It explained why she hadn't heard a sound from the students through the thin door of the science room. Also, he was pretty cute. He had shaggy white hair and pearly white teeth, and his eyes were almost like a dog's…or a wolf's. He grinned at her.

"Are you ready?"

Scarlet shook her head.

"Too bad, 'cause here come the students."

A total of twelve kids walked in.

The first was a group of four girls who looked like models all fawning over the same guy. He looked like a football player, while the girls were unnaturally beautiful. One wore white, one wore red, and two wore black. They all had perfect hair, perfect faces, and perfect figures. Scarlet was slightly jealous, even though Wolf would have told her she had nothing to worry about.

Then an Asian girl whose gait listed to the left. She winced as a boy, presumably her boyfriend, helped her into her seat. She let out a soft hiss as she leaned against the back of the chair and immediately straightened back up.

The girl's boyfriend also looked Asian, with messy black hair and a gray hoodie. He moved his chair really close to his girlfriend before sitting down.

A small blonde girl with turquoise eyes and lavender bangs over one eye. She was wearing long sleeves and tall boots. In 60-degree weather.

An African-American girl with dark, frizzy, curly hair whose face was one of the prettiest Scarlet had ever seen, even prettier than the supermodel girls.

The blonde boy who sat next to the curly-haired girl looked deadly serious, and the phrase "if looks could kill" came to mind when he glanced at Scarlet's face.

An Indian girl with about a hundred tiny electric blue braids in her hair and nails to match. She looked sickly and too skinny, but her expertly applied makeup did a good job of trying to hide it.

Another blonde boy, wearing almost exactly the same thing as the first one, sat next to her. He had dark purple bruises under his eyes, and he looked like he hadn't slept but was trying to stay awake and so had gotten himself hyped up on caffeine.

Ryu picked up his attendance sheet and read off the names. Scarlet tried to attach names to faces as he went down the list.

"Iko Blackburn."

The girl with the blue hair raised her hand. "Here."

"Jacin Clay."

The blonde boy with the killing stare raised his hand. "Here."

"Jade Daley."

The supermodel in white raised her hand. "Here."

"Cress Darnel."

The girl with the lavender bangs raised her hand, holding on to her shirt sleeve to make sure it didn't slide down. "Here."

"Zima Hayle."

The curly-haired girl. "Here."

"Topaz Jackson."

One of the supermodels in black. "Here."

"Liam Kinney."

The tired-looking blonde boy yawned. "Here."

"Selene Linh."

The girl who needed help getting into her chair and winced whenever she moved. "Here."

"Crystal Matthews."

The supermodel in red. "Here."

"Amber Miller."

The other supermodel in black. "Here."

"Kai Rikan."

The boy in the hoodie. "Here."

"Al Strom."

The boy who could have been a football player. "Here."

Ryu set the sheet down. "Since we're all here, please welcome our guest speaker for today, Miss Callie Benoit-Tanner."

The students clapped. Jade, Crystal, Topaz, Amber, and Al had impossibly huge smiles on their faces. The other seven looked either distant, in pain, or about to fall asleep. A couple even managed all three.

Scarlet shuffled her papers and grinned.

"Call me Scarlet."

 **A/N-Review please!**

 **Love,  
Baz**


	3. Later Friday Morning-Luna High

**A/N-Hey guys. I would just like to a) thank my six followers and the four people who favorited this story (as of 8:33 p.m. January 10th 2017), and b) respond to all the wonderful reviews I've gotten here.**

 **Lunartic521: Thank you! I will!**

 **PennTheWriter: Thanks! And thank YOU for being such a wonderful beta!**

 **Guest: Thanks for both of your notes! Sorry, but there's no Cresswell in this chapter. There probably will be in Thorne's chapter, though. Hope you like it anyway!**

 **BrynnBookWorm339: Thank you so much!**

 **Guest: Thank you! Scarlet is older than everyone because she's older than everyone in the books. In case anyone was confused, I'll put the ages here:**

 **Cinder/Selene-17**

 **Scarlet/Callie-20**

 **Cress-17**

 **Winter/Zima-18**

 **Iko-18**

 **Kai-18**

 **Wolf/Z-22**

 **Thorne-21**

 **Jacin-18**

 **Kinney-17**

 **NOTE: Mr. H is Ryu from last chapter! Also if I got anything wrong, I am so so sorry. I don't know anything about the mentality of people who self-harm, so please forgive me and let me know if I screwed up. (Please be nice about it if you do feel the need to correct me.)**

 **And now, your chapter. Enjoy!**

 _Cress. Do it. Do it. Do it do it do it do it do-_

 ** _No! I'm at school!_**

 _But you have to do it. You_ _ **have**_ _to, Cressie._

 ** _Shut the fucking fuck up before I get in trouble!_**

The little voice was silent after that. God, Cress hated him. She hated what he did to her, made her do. But it was the only way to get rid of him for a while. He always came back. But it would get rid of him for about twenty-four hours, so it was worth it.

She returned her attention to the front of the room where a girl with red hair that had been dyed black at the tips was talking about farming. Cress was actually interested in this class, but when Mr. H had told them that a "special guest" was coming, she hadn't given a shit. She had thought it would be a stereotypical old professor coming in and lecturing them, not this girl, who was only a few years older than them, and actually looked like someone other kids would be friends with. Not that Cress would ever be friends with this girl. She was slightly terrifying, because she was so self-confident and beautiful. Cress was small, plain, and worthless compared to her.

"…and that, my fellow human beings, is where your food comes from."

Everyone clapped as Mr. H shook the girl's hand and thanked her.

"Everyone say goodbye to Scarlet on your way out."

Scarlet. That was the girl's name. Cress put on a fake half-smile, hoping she hadn't offended Scarlet by practically ignoring her.

She was the last one out of the room, and freaked out when Scarlet slipped a note into her hand, winked, and made the universal sign for "shh".

Cress hurried to her locker and opened the note. It said, "meet me by the bike rack in 20 mins."

What did Scarlet want from her?

Cress decided she didn't care. She wouldn't pay attention to the rest of her classes anyway. She grabbed her books, headed to her fourth-period class, and whispered to the teacher that she needed to see the counselor. From there, she jogged to the counselor's office, where she spent ten minutes convincing the woman that she needed to go home, promising that she'd get someone to stay with her so she wouldn't start cutting again (and knowing she'd break that promise). Then she ran out to the bike rack in front of the school. Scarlet was there.

Cress saw that she had done her black-tipped red hair up into a ponytail, and was leaning against the empty rack like she didn't have a care in the world.

 _She probably doesn't_ , Cress thought. _After all, you're the one with voices in your head telling you to cut your arms open. She's_ _ **normal**_ _._

Cress waved and Scarlet waved back.

Scarlet closed the distance between them, meeting Cress about thirty feet from the bike rack. Scarlet hugged Cress, and then pulled away.

"Would you like to come over to my place?"

Cress was shocked. She'd never been to another person's house before. How was she supposed to handle this situation? She decided to respond with another question.

"Why would I do that?"

"You looked kind of depressed in class. I wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm…fine."

"You hesitated."

"No I didn't!"

"C'mon. Come to my house. I insist."

"Okay…"

Scarlet started walking to her car and motioned for Cress to follow.

"Come on…Cress. Cress, right?"

"Yeah."

Cress got into the passenger seat. Scarlet took a deep breath in, said, "Hey, darling," and started up the car.

"Why-" Cress hesitated. "Why did you call me darling?"

Scarlet pulled out of her parking spot and laughed.

"I was talking to my car. My grandmother named it Darling before she gave it to me."

"Oh."

"You mind if I turn on some music?"

"Sure. As long as it's not modern."

"What's wrong with modern music?"

"All of it is crappy bubblegum pop."

"Cress, there is _so_ much more to modern music than that. This song came out in 2015, and it definitely isn't the bubblegum shit you're thinking of."

Scarlet put what looked like a homemade CD into the CD player, and before it closed, Cress saw "Linkin Park-Living Things" written in blue Sharpie. Scarlet skipped a few songs.

"This song is my favorite on this album. It's called 'Roads Untraveled.'"

 _Weep not for roads untraveled  
Weep not for paths left alone  
'Cause beyond every bend is a long blinding end  
It's the worst kind of pain I've known_

 _Give up your heart left broken  
And let that mistake pass on  
'Cause the love that you lost wasn't worth what it cost  
And in time you'll be glad it's gone_

 _Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,  
whoa, whoa_

 _Weep not for roads untraveled  
Weep not for sights unseen  
May your love never end and if you need a friend,  
There's a seat here alongside me._

Several songs later, they were driving through fields, turning onto a driveway, and parking in front of a small house.

The house looked old and friendly. Like it would be filled with a family of six that would become like a second family to whoever walked inside. Scarlet knocked on Cress's window, interrupting her train of thought. Cress opened the door and stepped out of the car. She picked up her bag and put it on her shoulder. She winced when the strap brushed against her arm, which was still healing from the night before. Scarlet noticed and shot her a look, which Cress ignored. To distract Scarlet, she changed the subject.

"Let's go in. I can't wait to meet your grandmother."

Scarlet's face got a few shades paler and all the nonchalance drained out of her face, leaving just sadness.

"Scarlet?"

"Um. My grandma…she's…she's dead, Cress."

Cress gasped.

"Oh my god, I'm _so_ sorry."

Scarlet shrugged, her face slowly returning to normal.

"You couldn't have known. I'll be all right."

Cress apologized all the way up the driveway until Scarlet finally got tired of it and held up a hand.

"Really, Cress. You don't have to apologize."

Scarlet opened the door and went in.

"Wolf!" she yelled. "We have a guest!"

A big, bulky man walked down the stairs and towards the two girls. He had to be taller than six feet, with scars everywhere and neon green eyes. He looked absolutely terrifying. Cress squeaked and ducked behind Scarlet, who grabbed her bag and yanked her back out into the open by the strap.

"Cress, this is Wolf, my boyfriend. He's an absolute softie even though he looks tough, so there's no need to be scared of him. And Wolf, this is Cress, a girl I met after teaching that class I told you about."

Wolf pecked Scarlet's lips and stuck out his gigantic hand for Cress to shake. Tentatively, she shook it with her comparatively tiny hand. Wolf smiled at her, showing teeth that could belong to a real wolf without very much imagination.

"I'm so much taller than her." Wolf's voice matched his size, big and rough and deep.

Cress smiled nervously.

Scarlet eventually sat them all down on the couch in her living room.

"Cress," she said, leaning against Wolf like there was a magnetic force pulling them together, "do you have any family?"

Cress shook her head. "Just my boyfriend."

She was lying. There was Mistress Sybil. But now was not the time to think about her.

Scarlet nodded. "Okay, how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"And…do you…have a place to live?"

"Yes."

"Well, in that case, I guess I have to take you home."

"Okay." She turned to Wolf. "It was nice meeting you."

They shook hands again and Cress grabbed her stuff. She walked with Scarlet back out to the car. She grinned at Scarlet.

"You two planning on getting married any time soon?"

Scarlet blushed.

"I think Wolf wants to propose. But I don't know if he'll have the guts to actually do it. I might have to."

"Why don't you?"

"Because I'm terrified he'll say no."

They were silent for the rest of the ride, both women lost in thought.

They finally reached a bus stop that was within walking distance of Cress's apartment. She asked to get out there, despite Scarlet's protests. She walked the rest of the way to her sad little apartment, glad that she was finally home. She could finally release some pressure. She went straight to the kitchen and pulled out a knife. _Just once this time._

 **A/N-Cutting is a _very_ serious thing. If you self-harm in any way, please see someone. Someone out there cares and will miss you if you're dead. And again, if I got anything wrong, please let me know and I'll do my best to fix it. As usual, my PM is open.**

 **Love,**

 **Baz**


	4. Thursday Night-Levana's House-Winter

**A/N-Okay guys. A warning: this chapter discusses rape. Proceed with caution. This has been reposted, since the formatting got screwed up in the process of getting this thing up the first time. I hope you like it!**

The belt hit Winter's back.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Levana dragged a manicured nail (claw) across the bleeding marks and Winter let out a terrified whimper.

 _Please don't hit me again._

Levana seemed to read Winter's thoughts and withdrew the belt.

Only to pull out a jagged piece of rusty chicken wire.

 _Oh God. Please tell me she's not gonna do what I think she's gonna do._

Levana pushed the fencing material into Winter's back until it pierced the skin. Then she raked it slowly across Winter's back so there were five jagged, angry red lines where the skin had been ripped open. Throwing the piece of fence to the side, Levana grabbed a bottle of gin that had been on the rough wooden table. Winter was only half-conscious and her remaining senses were blurred by pain. Levana's cruel smile was the last thing Winter saw before she passed out from the burning pain in her back. Levana had emptied the entire bottle of gin onto Winter's open wounds.

* * *

It was still night.

Winter heard an evil giggle downstairs that she knew was Levana's. Then, the hallucinations stepped in to screw with her brain. She heard the screams of another girl. The clatter of a knife in the sink, water running, then the front door opening and closing. Winter was close to the stairs anyway, so she dragged herself over to the railing and looked down. There she was, her hallucination girl. Thin, willowy, with a stick-straight body. No curves. Brown hair and skin the color of coffee with just enough milk in it. Her eyes were closed, and she was sprawled out on the floor. Even from the second level, Winter could see red letters on her back. _Worthless_ , they said. Winter assumed they'd always been there, as she'd never seen the back of the girl. She called the girl Cinderella, having always been fond of fairy tales, even now.

Winter crawled back to her room, gritting her teeth. She fought the terrible school lunch (it was better than nothing) back down her throat as she passed the blood, her blood, spattered on the walls.

It looked like the house was bleeding.

She saw the bucket of water Levana had left out for her. At least the woman cared enough for her to give her a way to wash her injuries. She had to drag the bucket over to the tub, though.

Could she do it?

Winter grabbed the handle of the bucket. That was a start. She picked it up, yelling.

It was a miracle Cinderella hadn't woken up yet. Then again, she was just a figment of Winter's imagination.

Winter had to get to the tub, otherwise the cuts (cuts was putting it nicely) on her back would get infected and gross. So she grabbed the T-shirt Levana's friend, Aimery, had ripped off of her as soon as she got home, right after school. Levana had let him take her upstairs and torture her while she presumably got piss-drunk downstairs.

Aimery was awful.

He smiled the whole time he…violated her. Hurt her.

 _Come on, Winter, you have to at least be able to say it to yourself…_

Raped her.

Almost every day. And he was bigger and stronger than her, so she couldn't get away. But she could cry and scream. She cried till her eyes were bright red and her throat bled from all the screaming. Even after no help from anyone for years, she still called for help. Frantically, hysterically at times.

Winter stuffed the T-shirt in her mouth, even though it brought awful memories of being bound and gagged to the forefront of her consciousness. She moaned in pain, but the shirt helped block the sound. She dragged the bucket across the floor to the bathroom and kicked open the door. She managed to pick it up for long enough to set it inside the bathtub and then stepped in herself.

She took the shirt out of her mouth and balled it up, dipped it into the water, and started sponging her back.

Aimery hadn't bothered to put her pants back on today, but she had managed to get back into her panties before Levana came in, thank god. So she sat in the bathtub, washing the grime and half-dried blood off her back, whimpering in pain.

She eventually finished.

She got up and went to bed. She didn't even have the energy to put on pajamas.


	5. Friday Evening-Iko's House

**A/N-Hey guys. I really missed saying "hey guys" to y'all. I'm gonna respond to some reviews. I also missed doing that. (I'm responding to each individual review in backwards order.)**

 **TDB-Thank you for giving yourself a name, I really appreciate it! (It makes it a little bit easier for me to keep track of all the wonderful individuals taking time out of their day to review my work.) Thank you so so much for your kind review! Unfortunately, I have to get through Kai's and Wolf's chapters before I can do Thorne. Sorry you have to wait so long. I love writing these characters, though, so as long as I keep writing at the rate I'm going, Thorne's chapter should be out before the end of the month. There'll be Cresswell in his chapter, I promise! I hope you keep reading in the meantime.**

 **PennTheWriter-I totally understand. I'm protective of Cress too. Thanks!**

 **SerBannah-Thank you! I hope you continue to read!**

 **BrynnBookWorm339-I'm excited to write more, Brynn! Thanks!**

 **PennTheWriter-Thank you for your review. Thanks for being such a wonderful beta and friend as well, and sticking with me.**

 **TDB-Sorry it took me so long to update. See above.**

Iko scrolled though the new posts on her Instagram. Why couldn't she be like all those girls? The ones with their ribs showing, the ones with size zero pants on that were too big for them? She wanted to be like them. When she was like them, she'd be beautiful.

Her stomach growled. She ignored it.

Her stomach growled again, louder.

She texted her ana coach.

 _hey im feeling like eating. help?_

The girl texted back almost immediately.

 ** _don't do it. eat, and there goes the thigh gap that you're working towards. eat, and you'll ruin the fast you've been on for a week. you've been so strong. you can do it. for your thigh gap._**

Iko grimaced and responded, _thanks. hunger pangs are getting worse tho._

 ** _IGNORE THEM. IGNORE THEM WITH YOUR HEART AND SOUL._**

 _okay. you stay strong too, alright?_

 ** _i will if you will._**

 _i will._

Iko took a deep breath and pressed a pillow into her stomach to quiet it. She didn't need to eat. If she ate, she'd get fat. Fat like Al and his group had said she was.

She had been part of that group once. She had been Al's girlfriend. Then Al had started to say things like "well, maybe we shouldn't go out on dinner dates anymore. It's not like you need to eat more" and "I wish you could sit on my lap. But my legs might get hurt-and I need them in top shape for football season". She'd been sixteen and one hundred and twenty-five pounds.

She'd thought she was fine.

But she'd found out just how wrong she was.

A week later, she'd met Gina, her ana coach, through an online weight loss forum. Al had started taking her out to eat again. Usually he was the only one who ate. Iko declined, saying she "wasn't hungry" or that she had "eaten earlier." Al smiled when she did this. The few times she had ordered food, Al had scowled at her the whole meal and then dropped her off without saying a word. Iko had quickly learned that if she wanted Al's approval, she couldn't eat in front of him.

Two weeks after Iko met Gina, Al broke up with her. Al had left Iko for one of the other girls in his group, Jade. She was unnaturally beautiful. Iko's face had started to look sallow and sickly. According to Al, their relationship "just wouldn't have worked out."

Iko pushed her family and other friends away more and more.

A month after Al broke up with her, she was great friends with Gina and she didn't talk to anyone else much.

Iko was ninety-seven pounds. She didn't miss the twenty-eight pounds she'd worked off by fasting, exercising, and throwing up.

 _Ding. Ding. Ding._

Three texts. Iko swiped her thumb across the screen of her phone. They were all from Gina.

 ** _six o'clock. you can have two hundred calories. or not._**

 ** _srsly, or not._**

 ** _trying a new diet pill. wish me luck_** ** _J_**

Iko's fingers flew across the screen.

 _good luck._

Iko wasn't gonna have those two hundred calories. She didn't deserve them.

 **A/N-Okay guys. So, the reason why I was away so long is that first I got a wave of depression. Then, I kinda lost where I was going with my writing. I have had so much to do that I haven't felt like doing lately. Scarlet kept trying to get me past my creative block, but I just couldn't do it. I finally found some inspiration, and I'm so thankful. I still love all my characters, and I'm coming back from this experience a better person. I truly love you guys, and thank you for putting up with my crap. I'll update on Drabbles and Novel Academy as soon as I finish my homework. Thanks for reading, and please review.**

 **Love,  
Baz**

 **(God I've missed that.)**


	6. Friday Evening-Kai's House

**A/N-Well. Holy shit. I go on and on last chapter about how much I missed this and you guys, and then I disappear for over a week. If you're upset and wondering why this is, please look through my other fic, _The Scarlet Journal_ , and I'll give y'all the full story at the bottom. For now, I'm gonna answer some reviews and then get this damn chapter started.**

 **PennTheWriter: Thanks for letting me know about the J, but I've given up trying to fix it. It's got something to do with the formatting of the site, I think. For those of you confused about the J at the end of one of Gina's texts in the last chapter, it was supposed to be smiley face. Sorry. And thanks, Penni, for being such an awesome patient beta and putting up with my bullshit. I'm truly grateful.**

 **TDB: Thanks for understanding! I'm obviously a total mess when it comes to updating, but we'll hope for the best.**

 **Enjoy!**

Kai took a deep breath. He snapped his textbook shut and flopped back on his bed. He took another deep breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, and the image of Cinder's back from that morning flashed through his mind. Then the memories and flashbacks started. The blood, the knives, the gunshots. The masked guys grabbing his parents and pulling them into an alley, seconds before the same thing happened to him. His dad's sobs as his mom silently struggled and as the guy holding her kissed down her neck. He kissed and nipped while she tried to wriggle out of his grasp and cried. Then he slit her throat. The warm blood gushed down the front of the white shirt she was wearing.

"Marissa!" his dad had yelled. "No…no no no no! Not her, please! Please…"

The next thing out of his mouth had been a moan. The guy holding him had shot him in the side.

By that time, Kai was sobbing quite loudly. Someone had heard and called the cops, and they managed to save Kai and arrest almost all of the masked guys. One of them got away, but fortunately, he was seen by a cop in the next state over and arrested.

Kai had these flashbacks whenever he saw blood, or guns, or knives.

He hadn't told Cinder that her back was still covered in dried blood.

 _She probably hasn't washed off yet,_ he mused. _Putting soap on that would hurt like hell._

Kai picked up his phone and fired off a quick text.

 _u ok?_

 ** _i'll be fine._**

 _no. you won't._

 ** _come over?_**

 _give me ten minutes._

Kai pulled the charger out of his phone and grabbed the key to his apartment. His phone beeped and he checked it. It was Cinder.

 ** _do me a huge favor: go to the cvs and grab some concealer. it's #AF14._**

 _ok. it'll take me twenty more minutes to get to you tho._

 ** _i really need you to do this._**

 _ok…why?_

 ** _i'll tell you when you pick me up._**

 _k_

He turned onto the road that would take him to the CVS.

* * *

Kai was thoroughly confused. He stared down at the racks of makeup and realized that he had agreed to grab concealer when he didn't even know what concealer _was_. He sighed in defeat and walked over to the front counter. Luckily, the person there was a girl, because he didn't think a guy would be very much help.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm…uh, I'm looking for something called concealer…for my girlfriend, and I don't-"

The girl laughed.

"I get guys like you comin' in here all the time. Let me help."

"Thanks…" Kai glanced at her nametag, "Peony."

She smiled.

"Did your girlfriend, by any chance, tell you the shade of concealer she wanted?"

"All she gave me was a number. A-F-one-four."

"Perfect. That makes my job much easier."

Kai followed her over to the concealer and made a mental note of what it looked like. Peony made small talk.

"So, what's your name?"

"Hmm? Oh, my name's Kai."

"Wait...are you...Kai Rikan? Of ScrapMetal Jewelry?"

"…Yes. Why?"

"OMG, I _love_ your products! My favorite earrings are from there! I'm wearing 'em right now, actually."

She showed Kai that she was, in fact, wearing a pair of earrings he had made and sold through ScrapMetal. He smiled.

"I'm glad you like them."

"Anyway…here's the concealer your girlfriend wanted. I hope you guys are happy together."

"Thanks, Peony."

Kai left the store, grinning from ear to ear. It was so nice to talk to people like Peony, who were helpful to random strangers and seemed to be so happy.

He got back in his car and headed to Cinder's house.

* * *

Cinder smiled weakly when she opened the door for him. He held out the plastic shopping bag with the makeup she had wanted. She took it.

"I thought I was gonna get a frantic call from you asking what the hell concealer even was."

"Nope. I found it all on my own."

Cinder looked at his poker face and started laughing.

"Bullshit. That's absolute bullshit."

Kai smiled.

"So Kai, how did you do it? How on earth did you figure out what concealer was _and_ get the right kind before you came back here?"

"I asked the girl at the register."

"Oh, yeah. Most women will help guys out in situations like that. I think it's cause we feel bad for them…"

"Why did you need it anyway?"

"I ran out of concealer, and I have a giant fucking bruise on my face that I need to hide."

Kai looked at her face, trying to see if he had missed anything.

"I…I don't see a bruise anywhere."

Cinder smiled grimly.

"Follow me."

She dragged him to the bathroom, where her makeup bag was still on the counter from hat morning. She pulled out a makeup wipe and ran it over her left cheek, revealing a large band-aid. She peeled it off, and there was the bruise. Kai was stunned. He hadn't known that was possible.

"And…girls use makeup, right?"

"Yeah. Duh."

"So…they hide stuff like that every day? This is an everyday thing for girls?"

"Yeah. But some girls use way more makeup than necessary, and then you end up with the 'clown' or 'hooker' look."

"But doesn't that just mean most girls are lying about their appearance every time they wear makeup?"

"Oh my god, _please_ don't start with the whole 'false advertising' thing."

"What?"

"There's a thing on the internet where a bunch of guys have said stuff like, 'Makeup is false advertising,' and shit like that. It's bullcrap, and I don't want you to start to believe that like most guys have."

"Oh? So then why do girls wear makeup?"

"To cover up flaws. Because it makes them feel beautiful. There's a multitude of reasons, and like ninety-eight percent of them have nothing to do with making themselves look good for guys. Tell your ego I'm sorry."

"Why are you so pissy all of a sudden?"

"Sorry."

"No, seriously. What's wrong?"

"Have I ever told you anything about…girl stuff?"

"No…"

"Well, crap. This is going to be incredibly awkward. Umm, I think you're gonna need to take a seat."

"Okay…"

* * *

"And blood just…leaks out? All day?"

Cinder nodded, nervous about his reaction.

Kai suddenly swept her up in a hug.

"You are awesome. I never suspected a thing. You smile your way through a week of pain every month, and I just assumed you were mad at me."

"Well mood swings are part of it. You just happened to be the closest available victim. Sorry."

"No, no, it's fine. I probably deserved it anyway."

"No, you didn't."

"If I was bothering you while you were dealing with cramps, mood swings, your aunt, and your insides literally being bled out, I deserved it."

Cinder sighed.

"I'm not going to convince you, am I?"

"Nope."

Kai pulled her into a sweet kiss. Cinder's cheeks pinked.

"What was that for?"

"I don't know. Just…I love you, is all."

"I love you too."

 **A/N-Okay. I promised y'all a story, so here it is.**

 **Scarlet and I got a review on her journal from a guest/anonymous reviewer telling us that the person had reported us. Scarlet responded with chapters 15 and 16. Then two more guests came and reviewed saying _they_ had reported us too. Scarlet then posted chapter 17 and we decided to not post for a while. This site is getting to be a kinda awful place to post anything slightly outside the rules. People are being SJWs and they feel it's their duty to report anyone who steps out of line. C'mon, guys. Cut the rule-breakers some slack. The slogan of FanFiction is literally "unleash your imagination." If my way is a little different and breaks the mold a little bit, you don't need to lose it. Chill out. Honestly.  
**

 **I hope you guys enjoy my non-rule breaking fics as I continue to update on those. Obviously, _The Scarlet Journal_ has ended. But I'm not gonna take it down. Oh no, I'm gonna leave that little gem there. I wanna see how long it is before it's deleted by the admins. I also wonder if anyone else is gonna report it.**

 **Anyway, I hope you liked Kai's chapter!**

 **Love,  
Baz**

 **P.S. If you're gonna review as a guest, please please please put a name in the "Name" bar when you review. I want to be able to differentiate between y'all and thank you for your lovely reviews or in some cases, be mad at you for reporting my fics. 'Cause even though you heartless bastards probably don't realize it, it physically hurts me when I get awful reviews.** ** **And I will gladly accept constructive criticism. What I'm talking about when I say "awful," I mean** things like "I reported you. Your fic sucks." Things like that make my heart hurt. I hope every guest who reviews from now on will put a name in for me. Thanks again y'all!**


	7. Friday Afternoon-Scarlet's House

**A/N-Hey! I would've had this chapter up earlier, but the site was being a bitch. Sorry...**

 **Anyway, time for me to reply to reviews!**

 **Cassandra Starflower-Cool name! Thank you for the smiley face!  
**

 **PennTheWriter-Thanks, Penni. I want a Kai too XD.**

 **VSENH21-I thought about Batman's parents too...oops...**

 **ThatBlondeALB-Thank you for your honest review. And thanks for your support!**

 **ella rivera-THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR LEAVING A NAME! Also thanks for reading and reviewing. I'm glad you like it!**

 **TDB-That's okay. Thanks for your support! This chapter is mostly fluff because I wanted to balance the story, but just to be clear, Wolf has anger-management issues. (Sorry if that's not obvious...)**

 **And without further ado...the Fluff Chapter.**

Scarlet handed Wolf a beer. Wolf grinned at her.

"Scar. It is my duty as a law-abiding citizen to not let you drink with me. Then again, I don't give a shit."

Scarlet giggled.

"I may not have an ID but I'm more responsible than most adults. Don't give me that BS."

She opened the bottle with her teeth. Wolf did the same and they clinked the necks.

"To being too stubborn to go to AA meetings."

Wolf looked at her quizzically. Neither of them were alcoholics. Well, maybe a little. They shared at least one drink almost every night. But both of them had extremely high tolerance for alcohol, so they were barely drunk on one beer each.

Scarlet giggled again.

"No, for real, here's to your last anger management session."

Wolf smiled at that and clinked their bottles together again.

"I'm glad it's over. It means I won't get randomly mad at you anymore."

"I'll drink to that."

They both drank. Scarlet smiled teasingly at him.

"Wanna watch Lord of the Rings for the fiftieth time?"

"Hell yes."

Wolf flopped back on the couch while Scarlet set up their DVD player with The Fellowship of the Ring. She grabbed the remote and laid down with her head on Wolf's stomach. He tangled his fingers in her beautiful hair. He loved when she laid on him like a cushion. It gave him the opportunity to admire her beautiful hair, curves, beautiful everything really. That was why he agreed without hesitation every time she asked if he wanted to watch a movie. Luckily she hated the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey movies. She despised any chick-flick or romantic movies, really. She was the kind of girl that laughed at horror movies.

Wolf looked down at his girlfriend of two years. He loved her so much it was beyond words.

"Wanna binge Supernatural tomorrow?"

She glanced up at him.

"You know exactly what I like. Saving people, hunting things, the family business."

She returned her attention to the screen. Wolf smiled at her little saying. Scarlet was a really big fan of Supernatural. He always teased her about being too chicken to read any of the fan-written things about it. Her excuse was always the same: "No. The fandom is crazy. Most of them want Dean and Cas to fuck, and the rest of them want Dean and Sam to fuck. I'm not getting into that."

Wolf always smiled and responded, "But don't you want Dean and Cas to fuck?"

She would say, "I for one think they're _already_ fucking and just not telling anybody. But fanfiction makes me worry about the mental well-being of the writer."

He would just shake his head at her, grinning like an idiot.

* * *

Wolf startled awake and looked around blearily. He glanced at the clock and realized it was a quarter to one. A blanket had been draped over him and as he turned onto his side, a Post-It note fell off his face.

 _Hey, honey,_ it said, _if you're reading this, you're obviously awake. I'm sorry I left you to sleep on the couch, but we both know that I can't pick you up. And I didn't wanna wake you up 'cause you just looked so peaceful. Come on up to my room when you wake up._

 _-Scar_

 _P.S. You fell asleep right after the end of LotR II. We'll rewatch III tomorrow. Love you!_

Wolf grinned. Scarlet knew him too well for his own good. He threw off the quilt and headed upstairs to his girlfriend's room.

* * *

Wolf woke up to Scarlet being gone (again), so he got up and showered and changed. He headed outside to help Scarlet with the daily chores. He always offered to help her with the morning chores she woke up at 5 AM for, but she would never let him.

Every time he offered, she'd say, "I need _some_ alone time, ya goof. You can't be with me all the time. Plus, I like to do that shit myself. It gives me some time to think."

Wolf understood. Scarlet took care of the early-morning chores and let him sleep in, and he took care of the chores at the end of the day so she could cook dinner. It worked surprisingly well, and it gave each of them the quiet they needed to sort out their thoughts. (It also let them cool off if they were fighting, which had happened. They'd been together for two years, and in the first year, there had been some pretty nasty ones. By the second year, they had learned each other's boundaries, and which ones not to push.)

Wolf smiled to himself. Today was Sunday, and Scarlet always visited her grandmother's grave on Sundays. Scarlet's grandmother, Michelle, was a woman who passionately believed that God and Heaven were real, so Scar took along a Bible and read to her from it. Scarlet wasn't particularly religious, so she skipped church and went to the cemetery instead. Wolf had a plan that needed to be carried out within the two hours Scarlet would be occupied.

* * *

Wolf waved to Scarlet out of the window of her car.

"Bye, Z! Pick me up at noon, as always."

She jogged back to the car, stuck her head through the driver-side window, and gave Wolf a kiss.

"Tell Michelle I said hi and that I'm sorry I couldn't visit today."

"She'll understand. After all, grocery shopping is kinda something we need to do. She knows that."

"Thanks, Callie."

"I'll see you in two hours. Have fun shopping, baby."

"I'll try. Maybe the three-hundredth time's the charm."

Scarlet's clear laugh made Wolf smile as he drove off.

* * *

Wolf hurried through the grocery list that he and Scarlet had compiled that morning.

He got to the last item on the list, which Scarlet had added without his notice. He sighed and headed towards the feminine hygiene aisle, trying to remember which kind of tampons Scarlet used.

* * *

The male cashier nodded knowingly as Wolf put his stuff on the conveyor belt.

"You got a girlfriend?"

Wolf nodded.

"You like her?"

"Yeah."

"Take care of her."

"I will."

"That'll be thirty-seven fifty-nine."

* * *

Wolf looked through the glass countertop as the man behind the counter helped him select what he wanted.

He checked his phone. He still had a good half hour before he had to pick Scarlet up, but he wasn't sure he would make it. It was taking a while to pick out the perfect one.

The man behind the counter motioned at what he was holding.

"Do you like this one? It's got a nice big diamond on it."

Wolf shook his head no and kept looking. Then his eyes fell upon the one he knew would be perfect. It had a small, deep red ruby in the center, surrounded on either side by two tiny, vibrantly green emeralds that looked just like her eyes. The gems were set in a thin, elegant band. Wolf pointed at it.

"That one'll be perfect."

"Sir, that's meant for everyday wear. I don't think-"

Wolf interrupted him.

"That's the one I want."

The man sighed.

"All right, sir. It's up to you."

The man rang him up.

"Eighty-three ninety-nine."

"Women spend that much on everyday jewelry?"

"Sometimes more. Enjoy, sir."

"Thanks."

* * *

Wolf opened the car door and walked over to where Scarlet sat on a blanket in front of Michelle's grave.

"C'mon, Scar. It's time to go home."

"Okay, Z. I'll see you next week, Grand-méré."

Scarlet snapped the Bible in her lap shut and stood up. Wolf gathered up the blanket, messily folding it so that he could throw it in the backseat of the car.

Scarlet drove them home, never noticing the bag in the backseat that Wolf had partially covered up with the blanket.

* * *

Scarlet was digging through the fridge, looking for something.

"Z?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know where the cheese went?"

Wolf grinned sheepishly when she looked over at him.

"I ate it…"

"Wolf!"

"…but I got more."

"Damn your stupid sense of humor!"

Scarlet's smile got wider.

Which made Wolf smile.

"You think you're cute, don't you?"

"I think I'm adorable."

"Well, smartass, have I got news for you."

"Do you?"

"Yup."

"What might the news be?"

"You're fucking adorable as hell."

Wolf laughed and found the cheese. He handed it to Scarlet and headed out to the car to grab the plastic bag he'd left in the backseat.

He walked back into the house and tried to calm himself down, concentrating on slowing his pounding heart. Everything would be fine…he hoped.

He slid his hand into his pocket and ate dinner without removing it. Scarlet gave him a funny look but said nothing.

Eventually they sat down to watch the third Lord of the Rings movie. Scarlet flopped onto the couch.

"Wolf, go put the DVD in."

"You wanted this movie."

"But _Wo-olf_ ," Scarlet whined, "I'm too _tired_."

"Scar, can you sit up first? I gotta show you something."

Scarlet heaved a sigh.

" _Fine._ "

Wolf got down on one knee in front of his girlfriend as she sat up and brushed the hair out of her face. She saw what he was doing and her eyes widened.

"Miss Callie Benoit-Tanner, would you do me the great honor of marrying me?"

"No."

Everything in Wolf's body seemed to freeze.

"You idiot, it's _my_ honor. You don't get any. And _duh_. Of course I'll marry you."

Scarlet threw her arms around him.

Wolf grabbed her hand and gently slid the engagement ring he had bought earlier onto her finger.

Scarlet covered his face in kisses and then they sat down to watch the movie that would become more special to them than they ever imagined.

 **A/N-Okay! So, tell me what you think in the reviews!**

 **Scarlet: We have an assignment for y'all.**

 **Me: In your review, we want you to tell us what your dream proposal would be! (It can be for prom as well if you want to do that instead.)**

 **Scarlet: Then we'll turn it into a proposal fic for one of these fandoms:**

 **Maximum Ride**

 **Lunar Chronicles**

 **Carry On**

 **Fangirl**

 **Supernatural (Most likely Destiel)**

 **Six of Crows**

 **Me: And you'll get a dedication in the beginning.**

 **Scarlet: Oh, and before you ask, we choose the fandom.**

 **Me: Yeah. Please put that in your review and we'll try to get that oneshot up within a week.**

 **Scarlet: See y'all soon!**

 **Me: Love you guys!**


	8. Sunday Evening-Thorne's House

**A/N-Hey, y'all. It has been too long. TOO LONG! I hope you enjoy this chapter. (You especially, TDB.) The bit with the phone call is inspired by the lovely book _Keeping the Moon_ by Sarah Dessen. It's a good quick book if you're looking for something light and fairly easy to read.**

 **Oh, before we start, review response time!**

 **KvotheKylar/Grace O'Brien-Thank you! I'm a fan of both just like Scar and Wolf. And Scarlet helped me write that chapter so everything was accurate.**

 **Smolgaybean-Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad to know my writing is up to par, having had no experience to write from. And thanks for the recommendation!**

 **BrynnBookWorm339 (x4)-1. Thanks for your proposal! I'm kinda swamped with schoolwork right now, so it's gonna take me a long-ass time to get that fic up, but know that I'm working on it. 2. Thanks for your support! 3. Thank you! 4. Thanks again! And thanks for reviewing on every chapter, I really appreciate it.**

 **Guest-YOU DIDN'T LEAVE A NAME. But since you're the only one to forget, I'll tolerate it. And thanks!**

 **PennTheWriter-Thanks for your proposal idea! I'm working so hard to get these out, but it'll take a while. Sorry, guys.**

 **Guest/Lydia-Thanks! And I think you misunderstood me...it's not THIS fic being reported, it's my other one. The Scarlet Journal. And there's nothing worse than swearing and rants and bad grammar in there. (Although I think some people have an issue with my opinion of what Scar's views on some stuff would be.)  
**

 **TDB-Here's your Thorne chapter! I hope you love it to bits like I do, even though it's kinda sad.**

 **ThatBlondeALB-Thanks for your review! (You've seen and reviewed the proposal fic I wrote for you, so thanks for that review too. I'm glad you liked it.)**

 **VSENH21-Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! I was trying to make a cliché moment not so** **cliché, so I'm glad it was still pretty feelsy. (It _is_ a wedding proposal, after all.)  
**

 **TDB-I doubt anyone will report this story, since it's completely within the rules. (Fight me, you cowardly reporting BASTARDS.) Thanks for your support!**

The phone rang. As it did every night at around seven.

 _Ring. Ring. Ring._

Thorne ignored it.

Cress ignored it.

 _Ring. Ring. Ring._

Thorne changed the channel on his crappy TV.

Cress shifted in her seat.

 _Ring. Ring. Ring._

Thorne scratched his head.

Cress sighed and said, "Thorne, I'm gonna pick it up. I don't know who keeps calling you or why you want me to ignore them, but I'm tired of this."

Thorne sighed too.

"All right, Cress. You can pick it up if you want to."

Cress walked over to the phone, picked up, and put the call on speakerphone.

She said, "You've reached Carswell Thorne. Please leave a message at the beep," in a bored, generic, almost robotic tone, and Thorne was surprised at how similar she sounded to an automated answering machine.

She held her cell phone up to the landline and it made a _beep_. Thorne was surprised. He didn't know how that worked, but it was cool.

A man cleared his throat at the other end while Cress tried not to breathe into the phone and give herself away.

"Carswell. You finally got an answering machine. You know what I'm going to say. Come back to the family house. Take a different path instead of this… _military_ business."

He said "military" like it was a dirty word, and Cress winced.

"Your mother misses you, Carswell. I've nothing else to say to you. Goodnight."

There was a _click_ , and the call ended.

Thorne shook his head.

"No she doesn't."

"What?"

"She doesn't miss me. That's bullshit."

"Is this why your parents kicked you out?"

"Yeah. Because I got a letter of approval to VMI and my rich parents wouldn't pay for military school, so my even richer uncle did."

"Who paid for this house?"

"I did. Bought it off a friend for ninety-five bucks. As you might be aware, we've been actively renovating it every time I save up enough money. Speaking of which, I'm getting my paycheck in two days and then we'll have enough to do both bathrooms and buy paint for our bedroom."

"Ooh, does that mean we're going to get to go to the Home Depot again? I love the Home Depot."

"I know. And yeah, we're gonna go tomorrow and start planning right away."

They returned their attention to the TV, which was showing the news. Cress grimaced. Images of a group of police officers being attacked were flashing on the screen, one after the other. Thorne eventually turned it off.

"Hey, did you eat today?"

Cress shook her head.

"How's...y'know, your head?"

Cress shook her head again.

"All right, well, I'll get you something to eat, and we can talk about it."

Thorne got up and grabbed a pack of mint Oreos and started the coffee machine, then sat back down facing his girlfriend.

Cress ate three of the cookies and moaned.

"Why are Oreos so fucking _good_?"

Thorne also ate one.

"Well, did you think about cutting at all today?"

"Yeah."

Thorne wrapped Cress up in a hug.

"That's the third time in two days, baby. Is everything okay?"

Cress stuffed an entire Oreo in her mouth, chewed, swallowed.

"Well, I've been having more random memories of Sybil pop up lately, so maybe that's it?"

"What were the memories of?"

"So it happened four times this week. The first time, I remembered being locked up in a room, and I remember she starved me for like a week. She put a glass of water in the room three times a day. That was the first time I cut. I pretended I dropped a glass when I broke it on purpose, then I took one of the shards and…well, you know. She put a plastic cup in my room from then on, but it was too late."

Thorne got up.

"Keep talking, I'll be right back. I can hear you."

"The second time, it was one of the days that she was sitting in the chair beside the door. The second I opened the door after the bus ride home from school, she started calmly saying that I was a bitch. Over and over and over again. She sat there for like an hour and I could hear her throughout the apartment because the insulation was shitty and she was just loud enough for me to hear her, even when I went in the bathroom and turned the shower on, thinking it would drown her out."

Thorne came back with a blanket and wrapped it around his girlfriend's shoulders.

"The third memory was when I finally snapped and put a ruler on my left forearm, made a mark with a Sharpie every inch, and then did the same on my right forearm. Then I made the marker lines into cuts and laid down on my bed. Sybil found me and called 911. To this day I wonder if she saved me because she actually cared, or because she enjoyed torturing me too much to let me die."

Thorne rubbed the day-old stubble on his face as Cress ate two more cookies.

"And the fourth memory…well, you sort of know what happened, but you don't know the full story. So, do you remember that day, about two weeks into our relationship, when you kissed that other girl?"

Thorne's nose crinkled up in confusion.

"Other girl? No. I never kissed another girl."

"It was the day you rode with me to the hospital."

Thorne was still confused.

"I only kissed you that day."

"No. The only girl you kissed that day was that girl who you were full-on making out with against a wall."

"But…I thought that was you."

"No. She was a couple inches taller than me, and her eyes were a different color than mine."

Thorne ran a hand through his hair.

"Cress, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. She…she acted just like you. Called me Captain and everything. The only thing unusual about her was that she started kissing me the second she saw me. She was…really aggressive about it."

Thorne was blushing as he put his face in his hands.

"So…that day was all my fault."

"Well, after I saw that, you know the story. I went home, reopened every scar I had, and cut these diagonal ones. Then you found me, called 911, and rode with me to the hospital."

Cress took Thorne's face in her hands and made him look into her eyes.

"I don't blame you for that day. You obviously didn't know it was me. What you did may not have been okay, but it's not your fault and I forgive you. That girl, Crystal, she had something against me."

Thorne's eyes glimmered with tears, and they fell one by one.

Cress kissed them away and eventually met Thorne's mouth with hers. The kiss ended, and they just sat there in each other's arms for a while.

Thorne noticed when Cress started yawning, and he took her to their bedroom and got her pajamas out of the dryer and handed them to her.

She buried her face in the still-warm PJs and then put them down and took off her shirt. It wasn't sexual or anything, she was just changing as if there was no one else in the room. Thorne was used to this. The first time she had done it, about nine months ago, she had been too tired to walk into the next room, let alone be embarrassed. It had become a show of trust.

Cress was very private when it came to letting people see her body past the collarbone, so Thorne had been mildly surprised. But he hadn't questioned her. She had just finished her first day of working out, and she was _exhausted_. So when he carried her to bed and she had started changing, he had walked out of the room, thinking that was what she wanted.

The next morning, Cress told him that she just…no longer cared. So he went with it.

"I trust you," she had said, "that's why I felt so comfortable about it."

Even now, he didn't stare at her. He knew she wasn't trying to be sexy, so he didn't treat the situation that way. He treated it like he would have if Cress was another guy and they were in a locker room. Like it was nothing.

He took off his shirt and heard Cress's wolf whistle. He turned to look at her.

"Since when do you catcall? At me or anyone?"

Cress smiled, giggling a little.

"Well, Captain, _someone_ has to boost your ego."

Thorne smiled too and rolled his eyes.

"Of course that would be your response."

Thorne got into the bed with his girlfriend and they fell asleep.

 **Well, that's the new chapter! It has now officially been dedicated to TDB. Thank y'all so much for your support and general wonderfulness.**

 **Love,  
Baz**

 **P.S. Please check out the forum I set up! The link is in my bio and it's pretty self-explanatory. I love you guys!**


	9. Sunday Night-Jacin's House

**A/N: So this is my first _Scars_ chapter in a while. Tell me if it's up to par! I really hope you guys like it. I'm really fucking glad to be back.**

Jacin watched his little sisters play, fascinated by their laughs.

He couldn't do that. Laugh so freely. In fact, mostly, he had trouble even smiling. This didn't mean he was sad, either. He just didn't outwardly show any of his feelings.

It was like his facial expressions had been replaced with a black hole.

More likely, he thought, he had learned not to show his emotions early on in his life. It caused less trouble.

Jacin liked thinking of things in this objective format. It made everything easier to understand.

He wanted to become a doctor when he grew up, but currently the crazy drunk lady down the street was paying him fifteen bucks an hour to take care of her garden.

He also had a job at the local CVS, along with a girl named Peony. She was happy all the time. He tried to smile at her sometimes, but according to her, it always ended up looking sad and fake.

She was the only one outside of Jacin's family who knew about his feelings problem, and she tried to help him. She always wore the best earrings. They were all different shapes and colors, sometimes made of old mechanical bits.

She always let Jacin hold them and look at them and try to figure out how they were made. The most interesting pair was the ones made up of little bits of bicycle chain and tiny pink gems.

"Jacin! Jacin! Come play with us!"

He shook his head at his sisters. The smiles dropped off their faces and they went back to playing, but without the giggles and happy squeals of earlier.

Jacin put his earbuds in and selected Three Days Grace on his iPod.

Misery Loves My Company screamed out of the tiny electrical device and into his ears. He listened to the singer's voice as it rose and fell, and he tried to show on his face the emotions the singer was feeling. He eventually gave up and went into his room.

He picked up a book and started to read.

He got bored with the book, having read it multiple times before. He liked Sherlock Holmes books, and he liked the objective analysis that Sherlock did for every mystery. He tried to do the same and figure out the mystery before the book told him. There always seemed to be some twist at the end that would confuse him and disprove all his theories.

He did try to figure them out, though.

Jacin's most recent haul of books wouldn't be there for another few days, so he had nothing new to distract him.

Except Peony. He talked to her the whole time their shifts overlapped. He usually took the night shift, which went from two o'clock p.m. to two o'clock a.m. Peony's shift (the morning one) went from eight a.m. to eight p.m. They both worked twelve-hour shifts to support their families.

Jacin's mother had died in childbirth, and Jacin's dad had a low-income security guard position at a local museum. Jacin had three younger sisters who weren't old enough to work yet. So he worked a twelve-hour, $7.75 an hour shift at the only place he could get a job—they didn't need him to have social skills, they just needed him to be good with a cash register.

Peony's dad was either absent or dead (Jacin didn't know), Peony's mother and sister refused to work, and Peony's adoptive sister had gone missing some time ago. The missing sister, Selene, was the only other one who had worked in the family. Now Peony had to work twice as hard for twice as long to satisfy her mother.

* * *

"Jacin!"

"Peony."

He nodded in her general direction and picked up the clipboard of things they needed to do. Peony had already crossed off ten of the thirty items on the list.

"Hey, not bad. Ten out of thirty."

"What are you talking about? Ten things in four hours? I'm losing my touch, and you know it. You're just trying to spare my feelings."

"No, seriously. Ten things in four hours is great. Now we just have to finish the next twenty things."

"Oh, Jacin. Always looking on the bright side."

"Yup, that's me. Jacin the optimist."

* * *

Jacin waved goodbye to Peony as she walked out the door. Time for the truly difficult part of the night shift: the actual 'night' part. As soon as Peony went out the door, the entire shop went quiet and Jacin was left alone with his thoughts. Until, of course, a customer came in. Then he'd just stand stoically at the register until he had to check the customer out. He would give the required "Have a nice night," and the silence would creep back in.

This cycle would repeat until Jacin was safely back home with his dad and sisters.

Jacin stuffed his hands in his pockets and found his iPod. He didn't usually bring it, and he didn't remember putting it in his pocket, but he shrugged and stuck the perpetually attached earbuds in his ears.

He turned the iPod on and a Linkin Park song started from the middle. He mouthed along with Numb, and then a few minutes after midnight, a customer came in.

Walking through the door was the most beautiful girl Jacin had ever seen. Even with the pained look on her face, she was too beautiful for words. Jacin tried to smile at her, even though he knew it would look bad.

The girl smiled weakly back. She was breathing heavily. Jacin's smile disappeared.

"Can I help you?"

The girl laughed. At least it looked like she did. It was more like breathing out more loudly than she was already.

"Yes. You can help me. But I think we should introduce ourselves first."

"Okay…."

"My name's Winter."

"Jacin."

"Great. We're friends now."

"Okay, sure."

"Now that we've known each other for a good long time, can you check my back for me?"

Jacin was confused.

"Check your back? What do you mean?"

Winter lifted the back of her shirt and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh. Uhh, sure."

Jacin walked out from behind the counter so he could see Winter's back. It was a mess of scars and scabs. There were ten or eleven fresh cuts on her shoulder blades and lower back. Jacin inwardly grimaced.

"How did this happen?"

"I'd rather not have to go through that long story."

"Why'd you come here about it?"

"I'm out of butterfly closures."

"I think you need more than butterfly closures for that."

"Probably. But I don't have enough money for anything else. I'll manage."

"Would you let me buy some things for you?"

"I guess…. Hey, do you give vaccinations here?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if I'm qualified."

"I'm qualified. I handle syringes all the time."

"Are you a heroin addict or something?"

Winter laughed, a real laugh this time.

"No, silly. I'm training to be a nurse."

"Oh, good."

"You guys do tetanus and flu vaccines, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna need the tetanus one."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you the full story after I'm done fixing myself up. I should probably clean my face, too."

"It looks pretty clean to me."

"I'm wearing makeup. I usually have to when I go outside."

"Why?"

Winter's face went from friendly to grim.

"So people don't ask questions. When people ask questions, my life goes even further to hell than it usually does."

Jacin searched her face, nodded silently, and led her to the back where they kept the vaccines. Winter prepared one, grabbed a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and headed to the bathroom. With one foot through the door, she turned around and looked at Jacin pleadingly.

"Will you stay with me? I really hate needles."

Jacin nodded again and walked into the ladies' room with her.

He wiped her arm with the alcohol, and held her hand as she eased the needle into her arm.

She grimaced as she pushed the plunger down and pulled the needle out. Jacin opened a band-aid to put over the little spot of blood that had beaded up, but she pushed his hand away and wiped the spot with alcohol.

"She can't know I've been here."

"What?"

"If she even suspects that I got outside help, things will be bad."

"But what about the butterfly closures?"

"She buys me some. But not enough, usually. So I sneak out and buy more with her money."

"You steal?"

"Serves her right; she's an alcoholic bitch."

Winter left the bathroom and came back within two minutes. She had a pack of makeup wipes in her hand. She leaned over the sink, close to the mirror, and started scrubbing at her left cheek.

When she turned back to Jacin, he was shocked to see three long, jagged scars running down her face.

"What happened?"

"She wasn't careful. So she got my face. I'm lucky I still have this eye."

"I'm assuming you're not going to tell me who this person is."

"Nope. Will you help me with my back?"

"Sure. Do you want me to stitch the cuts?"

"No evidence of outside help, remember? She already has a hard time believing that I put the butterfly stitches on myself."

"Okay, let me just go check that no one's waiting for help. I'll be right back."

Jacin walked out of the bathroom and back to the counter, where a second girl was waiting. She put a Sprite and a package of Oreos on the counter, then dug in her pocket and pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. Then she tried to start a conversation.

"Hi. I'm Emilie."

"Hi, Emilie. I'm Jacin."

"Nice to meet you."

Jacin counted her change and handed it to her.

"Enjoy your Oreos."

Emilie smiled at him and swished out the door, the bell jingling behind her.

Jacin waited till she was in her car, then walked back to the bathroom and saw that Winter had pulled her shirt back up and sat down on the closed toilet, facing the wall. He sat down on an overturned bucket and pulled a butterfly closure out of the box, but she stopped him.

"We gotta clean them first. Usually I'd use something around the house because Ms. Bitch always leaves her vodka out, but I'm thinking we use the isopropyl this time, huh?

Winter smiled darkly at what Jacin thought was meant to be a joke.

Jacin nodded. "Uh, yeah, we'd better…"

He didn't know why he suddenly couldn't form proper thoughts. He couldn't even remember what he had just been talking about. He just quietly opened the bottle of alcohol and poured some on a cotton ball.

The second he touched her back with the cotton ball, Winter yelled and her knuckles whitened.

"Agh! Christ! It doesn't usually hurt this much."

She made eye contact with Jacin and sighed. "I'm gonna need your help to take my shirt all the way off."

Jacin just nodded.

She grimaced and slowly raised her arms above her head, obviously waiting for Jacin to pull the shirt up. He hesitated for a second, then did exactly that. He handed it to Winter over her shoulder. Her shoulders tightened slightly, but she took the shirt.

Her voice was small as she whispered, "Give me a warning before, okay?"

Jacin nodded, then realized she couldn't see him. "Okay."

Winter stuffed the shirt in her mouth and waited for Jacin to start.

He murmured, "Okay, Winter. I'm gonna do your left shoulder."

Jacin gently brushed over her shoulder with the soaked cotton ball, and almost immediately the whole thing was bloody. He got another cotton ball and repeated the process, narrating what he was doing the whole time. Then he did it again. And again. An hour later, Winter's back was completely clean. Then he started with the butterfly closures, using probably more of them than was strictly necessary, but he wanted to help Winter as much as possible.

"You done?" Winter asked.

Jacin hummed. "Yeah, I'd say so."

Winter smiled. "Good, your hands are fuckin' _cold_."

Jacin nodded, expressionless as always. Winter searched his face.

"Hey…Jacin?" Winter said the unfamiliar name like it was something fragile that she wasn't sure how to handle yet.

"Yeah?"

"I've been here for almost two hours and you haven't smiled or showed any emotion at all, actually, for this whole time. What's…I mean, why?"

Jacin shrugged. "I can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't show emotion. My body shuts it down because it's just easier that way. I'm not trying to be like this, but it makes sense that I would be after the mess my life has been."

"What does that mean?" Winter was surprised by Jacin's bluntness.

"My mom died in childbirth when she had my sisters. People…came after me when I was younger. They said I was gay and locked me in a supply closet, then forgot about me for two days. My family never has enough money to quite make ends meet. My sisters are 7 year old triplets, and they're going into Luna Elementary, which is _not_ famous for its caring teachers or great academics. I have to teach my seven year old sisters self-defense. I mean, for fuck's sake! They're seven!"

Winter looked at Jacin for a long moment. Then she stepped forward and hugged him as hard as she could. Jacin stood there and then hesitantly put his arms around Winter. She started crying. Jacin was shocked when all of a sudden, he realized he was feeling something. He felt sad for Winter and sad for himself. The feeling wasn't too strong, but he figured it was a step in the right direction.

 **A/N: R &R?**

 **Love,  
Baz**


	10. Very Early Monday Morning-Kinney's House

**A/N-I finally finished! I'm so glad this is out. I'm postjng early because I have a robotics competition tomorrow, and I have to get up super early for it. i'm leaving at 6 am and coming back at 6:30 pm! It's gonna be fun, though. Any way, without further ado, Kinney's chapter!**

* * *

Kinney's eyes were so dry they felt like they'd never be able to close again. He blinked slowly and then went back to watching YouTube. He knew he'd have to head to Hell in a few hours, but he just couldn't sleep.

Kinney woke up to the beeping of his alarm. He'd only gotten half an hour of sleep.

 _Fuck it_ , he thought, _I can sleep through English. Lutz feels bad for me._ He checked his schedule. _I also have a study hall today. Awesome._

He threw some crap into his bag plus a doctor's note that said he was exempt from homework and participating in class. He brought one of these in every day. He went to and paid for the doctor on his own, and had learned how to fake his parents' signatures a long time ago. He'd been signing his own forms since he was eleven.

He caught the bus just in time and sat down in the seat no one else wanted because it was all the way at the back. He closed his eyes and began to drift off.

Kinney jumped and blearily opened his eyes the next time the bus stopped. He saw the blue-haired girl who always sat in front of him walking down the center aisle. She stopped uncertainly at her seat, which had been claimed by a freshman. She stood there for a while, and then seemed to decide it wasn't worth the effort.

She leaned against the back of the bus for about ten seconds till Kinney looked at her and said, "Hey. Blue Hair."

Her head quickly turned toward him, tiny braids falling over her shoulders perfectly. Kinney was struck by how beautiful she was.

"Yeah?"

She sounded tired, already exhausted by the teasing she thought was coming.

Kinney gestured at the seat next to him. "Here."

The girl nodded and timidly sat down, tucking her arms into her sides and keeping her legs closed tightly as if she was tied up. She put her dark purple backpack on her lap and hugged it against her chest.

"What's your name?"

"Iko. I'm in your science class." Iko sounded a bit hurt.

"Oh. Sorry. It's not you. I'm just asleep half the time."

"And the other half?"

"Thinking about sleeping again."

"Oh."

"Hey, we had that speaker a few days ago. What was her name? Red?"

"I don't really…oh! Scarlet. It was Scarlet."

"Yeah, her. She was cool. I saw her with that short girl with the purple hair. They were talking by the bike racks."

"Interesting."

Iko clearly wasn't interested, so Kinney tried something else.

"You know, Iko, you're really freaking pretty."

Kinney was surprised and kind of scared when Iko started to cry. He awkwardly put his hand on her elbow till she caught her breath.

"What's wrong?"

Iko searched in her bag for a tissue. "No one has called me pretty since I was really young. It's…I don't…I can't talk about it. I just can't, okay?"

Suddenly she was annoyed at him. Kinney was getting more confused by the second with this girl. He decided agreeing with her was probably smart.

"Okay. I'm sorry I made you cry."

Iko nodded, and Kinney noticed that her eyelashes were staining her eyelids and cheeks blackish. He also saw the bags under her eyes which weren't there before. He asked her for a tissue and she handed one to him.

He put his hand on her face and gently turned it toward him.

"What are you doing? You'll smudge my makeup!"

He started to dab under her eyes, trying to get the blackness off. All he did was move it around.

Iko batted his hand away. "You're doing it all wrong! Now I have to fix it."

She dug in her backpack for a bag that she handed to Kinney. It weighed at least five pounds.

Iko dropped her bag at her feet and took the gray bag back from Kinney. She opened it to reveal a lot of little tubes and boxes. She took a wipe out of a small blue package and wiped her face off, and hundreds of freckles and a bunch of acne scars suddenly appeared. She pulled a small mirror out of somewhere, looked at her face in it, and groaned.

"Today is not my day, that's for sure."

She grabbed a tube that was the same color as her skin and took the cap off, squeezed some liquid onto the back of her hand, and started applying it to her face. She then found a really fluffy-looking brush somewhere in the gray bag on her lap and brushed over face with it. Just like that, her skin was perfectly smooth again.

She handed Kinney the small mirror. "I need you to hold this up for me at about that height." Iko put the mirror in his hand and then adjusted it so she could use it. She took out a black cylinder and shook it hard. She opened it and used a really thin brush to put black ink on the edges of her eyelids. Then she closed that black cylinder, and used a _different_ black cylinder with a pipe cleaner on a stick inside it to make her eyelashes longer. She put everything away, then closed the gray bag and dropped it back into her backpack. She pulled out her pencil case and then from that came a blue sparkly tube that matched her hair. She used the little sponge-on-a-stick inside that tube to put the blue stuff on her lips.

After Iko was done painting her face, she lifted the mirror out of Kinney's hand and put the mirror and blue stuff in her pencil case. She pulled her bag back onto her lap and dropped the pencil case in a pocket.

When all this was done, Iko noticed Kinney staring at her, mouth slightly open. She smiled at him.

"Amazing, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do I look different?"

"Mhmm."

Iko's smile got lost behind a cloud of an emotion Kinney couldn't think of a name for.

"Good."

He thought she looked just as pretty without the makeup, but after seeing how much work she put into it, he figured it was better he didn't voice it. He also really liked the color of her hair.

"…I, uh, I like your hair."

"Thanks. Did it myself." She laughed a laugh that had no mirth to it. "What am I saying? It's not like anyone else would have done it."

Kinney half-smiled at this girl. He liked her.

But there was something about her…something wrong. She didn't look right. The way she acted tugged at an alarm in Kinney's gut.

He wanted to make sure Iko was all right. _And maybe_ , he thought, _maybe we could be each other's therapy_.

He looked her up and down.

"Hey…wanna hang out tonight?"

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Are you trying to hook up with me?"

"No! No, of course not."

"I'm not inclined to believe you, considering you're looking at me like some people look at rollercoasters."

"What do you mean?"

"Terrified but excited to ride."

Kinney blushed.

"Oh, God. No, Iko. I'm not…like that."

"You mean, not trying to fuck every girl you meet?"

"…Yeah, I guess."

"Well in _that_ case…sure, let's hang out tonight. Do you happen to be any good with trig?"

"Yeah, I'm in honors."

"Oh, thank God. I'm failing. Will you tutor me?"

"Sure."

* * *

 **A/N-Wish me luck! And R &R?**

 **Love,**  
 **Baz**


	11. Monday Morning-On the Bus

**A/N-Sorry this chapter is so short. I wrote it in between study sessions. Finals season is a bitch. I'll be back at the...end of May or early June. (All we seeeeeee is fics, for forever.) See y'all then!**

* * *

On the other side of the aisle, Cinder and Kai were whispering to each other.

"Did you do your art homework?"

"No…"

"Fuck you and your procrastination," Kai said jokingly. "Here, we'll do it together."

They started working together to draw a diagram of a steampunk robotic arm, with hand bumping and Cinder correcting Kai's mistakes and small, secret smiles.

They were enjoying themselves so much that they didn't realize that they were at school until Kinney tapped Cinder's notebook.

"Hey, guys. We're at school."

Cinder and Kai looked up at Kinney. Cinder smiled and thanked him. Kinney nodded with a small smile in return and he and Iko walked off the bus together. Kai poked Cinder.

"Do you know that girl with the blue hair? I feel like I've seen her before."

"Yeah, so have I…oh! She's in our science class."

"Oh yeah! I can't believe I forgot her blue hair."

Cinder started to get up and winced. "Can you, ah, can you help me up?"

Kai nodded and offered her his arm. Cinder had brought her backpack today, a silvery-gray sack lined with black plastic cords that held it up where the fabric would otherwise sag. There were several holes in the bottom, which she had fixed with duct tape and hot glue. She grabbed it by the fraying strap and swung it on to her shoulder.

Kai watched as she bit her lip, trying not to let the pain show on her face. He started to say something, but she cut him off.

"I'm fine. We'll just do the PDA thing today."

"Meaning?"

"I'll lean on you and you'll put your arm around me and we'll pretend everything's fine. We'll embody the cute couple that everyone wants to be."

"I thought you didn't like lying."

"I don't like liars. Lying to survive is different."

"Oh."

"Just. Please? I won't make it through today without your help."

"Of course I'll help you. I was just trying to understand."

"Right. Of course. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. You'll make it."

Cinder smiled at her boyfriend. She didn't deserve him.

"I have to tell you something, Cinder."

"Um, I—can it wait?"

"…Sure."

Most of the kids in the bus had filed out, leaving the few stragglers that had fallen asleep or, like Cinder, had injuries that made them slower. Unlike Cinder, all the other injured kids on the bus played sports and had broken or sprained limbs.

Her eyes flicked around at all the poor souls who trudged their way off the bus in front of her, and they caught on a girl with poofy brown hair. She wasn't wearing a cast or ace bandage, and she looked like she too had a back injury.

After everyone was off the bus, including Cinder, she and Kai pushed through the crowd of kids milling around in front of the school.

"Who are we looking for again?"

Cinder ignored Kai's question and continued to drift left and right, following the path of least resistance.

"There she is. Hey!"

The girl looked around discreetly, trying to check if she was the one being called. Cinder made eye contact with her as she was looking around and smiled. The girl smiled back, looking slightly confused.

Cinder made her way over to the girl, mentally preparing what she was about to say.

"Hey. I'm Cinder."

The girl looked like she'd just found the meaning of life or something. "I'm Winter. I've seen you before."

"At school? Yeah, we're in the same science class."

"English too, but that's not the point. You don't happen to live with an abusive woman named Levana, do you?"

Cinder winced at the mention of her aunt's name. "Yep, I live with her."

Winter nodded. "I do too. You never see me and I hallucinate so I thought you were a hallucination of mine. I called you Cinderella in my head."

Cinder's first reaction to Winter's testimony was that she was lying. But after some thought, she realized that Winter had no reason to lie.

"Did you say hallucinate?"

"Yeah. I went to the school counselor under another name and he said that all of the trauma I've experienced fucked my brain up. Now I hallucinate."

"Holy crap. I thought I had it bad."

"You do. _We_ do."

"Well, that's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you. You look like your back is pretty screwed up."

"It is. How did you know?"

"The way you walk and the fact that you're holding your bag in your hand instead of wearing it. I have the same problem so I guess I'm more attuned to the symptoms."

The bell rang, interrupting the girls' conversation.

"I guess I'll see you at lunch?"

Cinder nodded. "Yeah, we can talk more then."

* * *

 **R &R?**

 **Stay safe!**

 **Love,  
Baz**


End file.
